The gay glass ceiling effect

Effeminate men get passed over for leadership roles and gay men contribute to a culture that prevents them from advancing in their careers, a new study by the University of Sydney has found. Lead author Ben Gerrard has found that masculine bias is present in both straight and gay men with both preferring masculine-presenting men in leadership positions, with gay men being “complicit” in penalising “feminine-presenting men of their own community”. Media images of gay men are increasingly masculine and therefore not representative of the diversity of the gay male community, says Gerrard, leading to anxiety and a ‘gay-glass-ceiling’ in the workplace.